SPEECH 


OF 


JMR.  HILL,  OF  JTEW  IlJlJflP  S  HIRE, 

IN  SENATE,  MAY  10,  1832, 

ON  MR.  BIBB’S  AMENDMENT  TO  THE  BILL  FOR  ESTABLISHING  POST  ROADS, 
PROPOSING  THE  ABOLITION  OF 


POSTAGE  ON  NEWSM P-T5 R'S’. :  \  : 

•  •  •  ••  %  •  •  • 

Mr.  HILL:  After  the  assiduous  labor  at] their  |ep$tj  posfmjtetfcss  by)  J  specific  sala 


morning  and  night  for  several  weeks  in  sui 
cession,  which  the  Committee  on  the  Post 
Office  and  Post  Roads  had  bestowed  on  the 
bill  from  the  House  of  Representatives  for 
creating  new  post  roads — after  travelling 
through  every  section,  near  and  remote,  of 
every  State  and  Territory,  as  well  on  maps  as 
in  books,  carefully  marking  where  by  law 
routes  already  existed,  and  where  they  were 
most  wanted,  to  fix  and  ascertain  the  best 
avenues  by  which  information  and  intelli 
gence  could  be  carried  to  all  the  people  of  the 
United  States; — as  a  humble  member  of  that 
Committee,  I  am  free  to  declare,  the  amend¬ 
ment  to  the  bill  ottered  by  the  Senator  from 
Kentucky,  to  abolish  newspaper  postage,  to 
be  not  less  unexpected  than  it  seems  to  me  to 
be  unreasonable  and  unkind. 

What  does  the  bill  itself  propose?  It  is 
confined  to  a  single  object,  that  of  establish¬ 
ing  new  post  roads,  and  discontinuing  old 
ones  that  were  deemed  useless.  It  had  as 
little  to  do  with  newspaper  postage  as  had  the 
bill  to  vaccinate  the  Indians:  it  might,  with 
a  much  better  face,  have  been  tacked  to  that 
omnium  gatherum,  the  appropriation  bill,  be¬ 
cause  to  carry  the  provision  into  effect,  a 
large  appropriation  of  money,  directly  from 
the  Treasury,  must  be  necessary.  1  trust, 
Sir,  that  whatever  may  be  the  opinion  of  hon¬ 
orable  Senators  as  to  the  reduction  of  news¬ 
paper  postage,  they  will  vote  against  this  pro¬ 
position  to  burden  a  bill  intended  exclusively 
for  one  object,  with  another  and  an  entirely 
different  object;  a  bill,  too,  which  did  not  ori¬ 
ginate  in  this  body,  and  on  which,  if  amend¬ 
ed  by  proposing  a  new  principle,  anotherdis- 
cu9sion  must  take  p  ace  in  the  other  branch, 
which  may  carry  the  time  for  its  passage  be¬ 
yond  the  present  session. 

"'At  a  proper  time  I  shall  be  ready  to  vote 
for  a  reduction  of  the  postage  on  newspapers 
to  as  great  an  extent  as  the  interest  of  their 
proprietors,  or  of  the  great  mass  of  newspa¬ 
per  reauers  shall  require;  but  until  the  Ame¬ 
rican  people  are  prepared  to  defray  directly 
from  the  Treasury  the  whole  expense  of  the 
Post  Office — until  they  are  prepared  to  pay 


ry — I  Ca.n’hoVcotiSent’  td  aboKSh’eYltirely  post¬ 
age  on  newsp&pbri^ >»•  !•„  l  .v 

Ne wspappes.  ^lj*e]a,J^,  advantage 

over  every  thing  else  carried  in  the  public 
mail.  The  printers  of  newspapers  already 
have  their  exchange  papers  free  of  postage. — 
Does  any  one  believe  that  such  a  sheet  as  the 
New  York  Enquirer,  or  the  National  Intelli¬ 
gencer,  can  be  transmitted  eighteen  hundred, 
one  thousand,  or  even  one  hundred  miles,  and 
carefully  preserved  and  delivered  for  less  than 
one  cent  and  a  half?  Letters  of  the  same 
weight,  requiring  little  more  attention,  would 
be  charged  from  one  dollar  to  two  or  three 
dollars,  according  to ‘distance. 

I  cannot  agree  with  the  Senators  from  Ken¬ 
tucky  and  Delaware  who  represent  the  post¬ 
age  on  newspapers  to  be  a  burdensome  and 
unjust  tax  upon  the  people.  It  is  not  more 
burdensome  and  unjust  than  is  the  price  of 
the  white  paper  on  which  newspapers  are 
printed,  or  the  price  of  the  types,  the  ink, 
and  the  labor  of  printing — it  is  a  necessary 
portion  of  the  expense  incurred  in  furnishing 
the  article. 

Let  us  suppose  that  the  public  mail  was  car¬ 
ried  exclusively  for  the  delivery  of  newspa¬ 
pers.  Will  any  body  pretend  that  the  pres¬ 
ent  price  of  newspaper  postage  would  defray 
even  a  fifth  part  of  the  expense  of  transmit¬ 
ting  and  delivering  them?  Yet  of  the  weight 
carried  by  the  mails,  the  letters  which  pay 
about  nine-tenths  of  all  the  revenue  are 
scarcely  in  bulk  or  in  weight  as  one  to  twen¬ 
ty  of  the  newspapers  and  pamphlets.  The 
newspapers  are  already  literally  carried  at 
the  expense  of  the  tax  on  letters.  How,  then, 
can  it  be  said  that  the  people  are  unjustly  tax¬ 
ed  who  pay  postage  on  newspapers? 

I  have  made  it  an  object  to  enquire  at  the 
Post  Office,  in  this  city,  what  is  the  relative 
weight  and ’bulk  of  newspapers  and  letters 
passing  through  the  mail?  The  Chief  Clerk 
in  that  Office  did  not  hesitate  to  say  that  they 
were  as  twenty  to  one.  The  mail  passing 
from  North  to  South  through  this  place  daily, 
contains  generally  from  twenty  to  thirty — 
never  less  than  ten  bags,  weighing  some  1 50 


2 


to  200  pounds  each.  One  of  these  bags  will 
contain  all  the  letters.  On  Monday  morning 
I  saw  the  Southern  mail  as  it  was  despatched: 
there  were  twenty-one  bags  of  newspapers, 
and  all  the  letters  did  not  fill  as  much  as  one 
bag. 

Sir,  it  would  be  rank  injustice  to  abolish 
the  entire  postage  on  .newspapers.^  In  that 
respect,  you  wf]J*m#ke* vM.timsfc  who  live  near 
a  post  office  a  privileged  el asV.*  »T4ieir  news¬ 
papers  will  be  carried  .gratis,  .while  those  who 
live  at  a  distance  ifromc  Jh©  pggft  •  gffipcp,  -must 
pay  for  the  'c.lrriage  and  tfelivery  of  their  pa- 
pers.  /.  -  .*•  ;•  ‘11  1 

In  New  Engl'anxl;*  al  must  every  family  takes 
one  or  more  newspapers.  Not  one  in  ten  of 
these  newspapapers  ever  go  into  the  mail  at 
all.  There,  very  frequently,  companies  are 
formed  in  the  districts  and  townships,  to  take 
the  newspaper;  each  one  takes  his  turn  in  ro¬ 
tation  to  travel  ten,  fifteen,  twenty  or  thirty 
miles,  on  the  day  of  publication,  and  deliver 
the  newspaper  either  at  some  place  of  deposit 
or  at  the  door  of  each  subscriber.  In  other 
cases,  a  post-rider  makes  it  a  business  to  tra¬ 
vel  an  extensive  district  of  country  to  deliver 
the  newspapers  which  he  purchases  of  the 
printer,  and  adds  the  expense  of  carrying. 
In  other  instances  the  mail-carrier  takes  the 
newspaper  from  the  printing  office,  or  post- 
office,  and  delivers  it  while  on  his  way,  charg¬ 
ing  and  receiving  extra  pay  for  the  service. 
If  the  postage  be  entirely  abolished,  scarcely 
one  in  ten  of  all  the  readers  of  country  news¬ 
papers  will  be  benefitted  at  all.  They  will 
still  be  obliged  to  pay  for  the  transmission 
and  delivery  of  their  newspapers;  and  to  be 
consistent.  Government  should  make  provis¬ 
ion  that  their  papers  should  go  free,  not  less 
than  the  newspapers  of  those  who  happen  to 
live  at  the  door  of  some  post  office. 

The  number  of  post  offices  at  the  present 
time  is  about  ten  times  as  great  as  it  was  in 
1800  Then  there  were  only  about  1000  in 
the  United  States — now  there  are  about  10,- 
000.  Of  this  number  of  post-masters*  the  an¬ 
nual  compensation  of  a  majority  will  nof 
average  fifty  dollars.  In  the  small  offices, 
much  of  this  compensation  is  derived  from  the 
newspaper  postage,  the  post-master  receiving 
one  half  for  his  labor;  he  receives  one  half 
cent  for  keeping  the  account  and  delivering 
the  paper,  if  printed  within  his  State,  or  with¬ 
in  one  hundred  miles,  and  three  fourths  of  a 
cent,  if  printed  beyond  the  distance  of  one 
hundred  miles.  What  compensation  do  you 
propose  to  him  for  that  service,  in  this  amend¬ 
ment  ?  None  at  all.  Does  he  receive  too 
much  already?  If  not,  can  you  do  less  than 
authorize  the  Department  to  pay  him?  If  he 


receives  nothing,  what  obligation  is  he  under 
to  take  care  of,  and  deliver  the  papei  s  ?  Will 
he  do  it  for  nothing?  That  cannot  be  expect¬ 
ed  :  the  Department  must  remunerate  him 
by  increasing  his  commission  on  letters,  or  in 
some  other  way. 

It  is  well  known,  Mr.  President,  that  most 
of  our  country  newspapers  at  e  not  a  source  of 
profit  to  their  proprietors.  With  the  most 
severe  physical  and  mental  labor,  the  print¬ 
ers  of  country  newspapers  are  scarcely  able 
to  obtain  a  livelihood.  I  cannot  doubt,  that 
it  was  the  intention  of  the  Senator  who  intro¬ 
duced  this  proposition,  to  assist  them  :  he  is 
mistaken,  Sir.  Pass  this  proposition  into  a 
law,  and  it  will  annihilate  at  least  one  half  of 
our  village  newspapers  ;  they  cannot  survive 
the  advantage  which  will  he  given  to  the  news¬ 
papers  printed  in  the  large  cities,  which,  by 
means  of  improved  printing  machinery,  ran 
be  delivered,  if  they  go  lree  of  postage  by 
mail,  at  any  distance  as  cheap,  if  not  cheap¬ 
er.  than  the  local  papers. 

There  is  a  newspaper  under  the  patronage 
of  the  Society  of  Methodists  in  New-York — 
a  useful  anu  well  conducted  journal — which 
issues,  at  each  impression,  25,0  10  copies; 
and  these  are  circulated  in  every  State  of  the 
Union.  This  proposition,  if  adopted,  would 
enable  the  worthy  men  who  conduct  that  jour¬ 
nal,  to  increase  the  number  to  100,00  »  ;  and 
this  immense  number  would  be  subtracts  I  in 
the  main  from  the  useful  local  papers  through¬ 
out  the  United  States,  whose  proprietors  are 
unable  to  procure  a  patronage  seldom  exceed¬ 
ing  five  hundred  or  a  thousand  names.  A 
team  of  four  horses  would  not  be  able  to  draw 
a  single  impression  of  this  paper.  How  easy 
would  it  be  for  a  combination  of  men,  for  mer¬ 
cenary  as  well  as  for  laudable  pi  rposes,  to 
stop  any  press  which  had  barely  sufficient 
support  to  exist,  by  deluging  its  vicinity  with 
other  newspapers,  which  could  be  done  at  a 
thousand  miles  distance,  free  fron  all  ex¬ 
pense  of  postage  ? 

This  proposition,  I  am  free  to  acknow’- 
ledge,  will  be  of  great  advantage  to  the  news¬ 
papers  published  in  this  District,  and  in  some 
of  the  larger  cities;  but  that  advantage  will 
be  entirely  at  the  expense  of  the  smaller 
newspapers  printed  in  the  villages  :  it  will  go 
to  feed  those  which  are  already1  well  patroniz¬ 
ed,  and  starve  those  which  can  now  scarcely 
subsist.  And  this  is  not  the  worst  feature  of 
the  case  :  instead  of  taking  such  lessons  from 
our  local  newspapers,  as  the  home-bred  ideas, 
the  honest,  frugal,  and  industrious  habits  of 
oc r  yeomanry  shall  prompt,  the  people  must 
be  lectured  by  th«  se  who  do  every  thing  on  a 
great  scale ;  they  must  be  instructed  in  the 


3 


fashions  and  the  notions  of  the  great  and  the 
gav  ;  they  must  take  as  their  teachers,  pei- 
haps  the  vain  and  the  vicious — perhaps  the 
pensioned  and  the  proud;  or  may  be,  the  pat¬ 
riotic  and  the  wise.  I  repeat.  Sir,  that  the 
tendency  of  the  amendment  will  be,  to  enable 
the  few  to  monopolize  the  newspaper  press  of 
the  whole  country,  and  the  consequent  de¬ 
struction  of  those  local  presses  of  the  interi¬ 
or,  which  now  sustain  the  most  healthy  pa  t 
of  the  public  sentiment. 

Another  consequence  of  this  proposition 
will  be  the  overburdening  the  mails  on  all  the 
principal  roads,  so  as  to  increase  the  expense 
of  transport  and  retard  them  in  their  pro¬ 
gress.  Boston,  New  York,  Philadelphia, 
Baltimore  and  Washington  will  pour  out 
newspapers  in  such  quantities,  that  without 
some  newly  invented  carriages,  some  greato 
than  mere  brute,  animal  power,  the  Depart 
m>-nt  will  never  be  able  to  expedite  the  mails 
at  all.  On  all  the  great  mail  roads— and 
these  are  now  far  the  most  expensive — double 
conveyances  for  the  mail  will  be  required 
and  this  will  nearly  double  the  expense. 

The  net  proceeds  to  the  Department, 
from  newspapers  and  pamphlet  postage,  tor 
the  vear  ending  June  30,  1830,  amounted  to 
§98,313  44— for  the  year  ending  June  30, 
1831,  they  were  §112.111  22— showing  an 
increase  in  one  year  of  §13,597  78.  Ihea- 
mount  paid  was  of  course  double,  as  the  post 
masters  receive  one  half.  The  revenue  es¬ 
timated  for  the  year  ending  June  30,  1832,  is 
§125,000.  Besides  the  compensation  to 
postmasters,  the  proposition  will  take  from 


only  as  one  to  nine  or  ten  when  compared  to 
letter  postage,  is  greater  than  the  whole  a- 
mount  of  postage  on  both  letters  and  news¬ 
papers  was  in  the  year  1800.  For  many 
years  no  regular  accounts  of  the  newspapers 
were  kept  in  the  post  offices,  although  subscri¬ 
bers  always  paid  as  high  postage  as  they  now 
pay.  But  a  new  system  of  checks  on  the 
newspaper  postage  accounts  in  the  several 
post-offices,  made  but  a  few  years  ago, brought 
order  out  of  chaos  in  that  branch  of  the  de¬ 
partment,  until  it  contributes  something  to¬ 
wards  supporting  itself. 

The  Senator  from  Kentucky,  (Mr.  Bibb,) 
has  calculated  that  there  will  be  half  a  mil¬ 
lion  of  dollars  at  the  disposal  of  the  Depart¬ 
ment  on  the  first  of  July  next.  This  was  the 
first  time  I  had  heard  such  a  suggestion.  I 
had  understood  that  for  the  last  ten  or  fifteen 
years  the  Department  has  expanded  itself,  as 
far  and  as  fast  as  its  means  would  allow,  to 
the  aci  ommodation  of  the  whole  country,  by 
increasing  the  mail  facilities.  Within  my 
knowledge,  we  have  tri-weekly  and  daily 
mails  passing  over  roads  where  but  a  few 
years  since  there  were  none,  and  only  single 
horse  mails  once  a  week  or  fortnight.  Mail 
stages  now  pass  through  the  most  of  our  towns, 
and  the  benefits  of  this  useful  establishment 
diffuse  themselves  into  ever  neighborhood. 
This  morning  I  find  on  my  table  letters  and 
newspapers  brought  from  New  York,  a  dis¬ 
tance  of  250  miles,  in  thirty-six  hours,  and 
from  Boston,  500  miles,  in  three  days.  We 
have  the  mail  expedited  from  New  Orleans  to 
Washington  in  one  half  its  former  time:  from 


§140,000,  being  the  amount  which  may  be 
anticipated  for  1832-3 — it  will  add  to  the  ex¬ 
pense  of  transportation  certainly  an  equal  if 
not  a  greater  amount;  foi  it  cannot  be  consi¬ 
dered  that  the  contractors  will  be  holden  to 
encounter  the  additional  burden  without  a 
consideration;  and  it  will  lay  the  Department 
under  obligation  in  any  court  of  chancery  to 
pay  the  post-masters  at  least  an  amount 
equal  to  whatthey  would  receive  for  the  news 
papers  which  are  carried  in  the  mail  under 
the  present  arrangement.  These  three  items, 
at  the  lowest  calculation  will  amount  to  420,- 
000  dollars. 

Indeed,  when  it  is  considered  that  the  number 
of  newspapers  transported  by  the  mail  will  be 
swelled  possibly  to  even  ten-fold  their  present 
amount,  the  calculation  is  not  extravagant 
when  we  anticipate  that  the  Department  may 
be  crippled  with  the  additional  burden  of  half 
a  million  of  dollars,  the  first  year,  by  this 
proposition. 

The  newspaper  postage  alone,  which  is  now 

cvritt 


days,  there  is  a  new  arrangement  by  which 
one  or  more  days  are  gained.  There  is  scarce¬ 
ly  a  week  or  even  a  day  in  which  some  new 
improvement  is  not  made,  facilitating  the 
transport  of  the  mails.  The  Department  has 
kept  even  pace  with  the  country  in  its  march 
of  improvement.  These  great  improvements 
involve  great  expenses:  and  although  the  De¬ 
partment,  in  some  cases  has  gained  more  by 
?he  improvement  than  it  has  expended  in, 
making  it,  it  could  not  be  expected  such 

would  be  the  general  result. 

The  Senator  has  noticed  a  surplus  fund  of 
some  two  hundred  thousand  dollars,  which 
may  be  brought  in  aid  of  any  deficiency  that 
may  be  caused  by  abolishing  newspaper  post¬ 
age.  This  surplus  fund  was  formerly  much 
larger  than  it  now  is.  It  is  highly  creditable 
to  the  administration  of  the  present  Head  of 
the  Department  and  to  his  predecessor,  that 
while  the  number  of  post  offices  and  the  re¬ 
ceipts  of  the  establishment  have  been  increas* 
ed  nearly  ten-fold,  the  actual  losses  from  the 


4 


defalcations  of  postmasters  are.  much  less  in 
the  last  ten  years  than  they  were  from  1800 
to  1810.  The  surplus  fund  to  which  the  Sen¬ 
ator  alludes  is  not  available — a  large  portion 
of  it  never  can  be  realized:  it  consists,  if  I 
understand  the  matter  right,  of  outstanding 
debts,  many  of  which  are  doubtful,  and  some 
of  which  areabsolutely  hopeless.  Every  man 
of  extensive  business  generally  has  such  a  sur¬ 
plus  fund  as  this,  which  he  accounts  as  worth 
little  or  nothing  for  present  purposes. 

It  is  not  good  management  alone,  Mr. 
President,  which  can  keep  the  receipts  of 
the  Department  above  its  expenditu  res.  Any 
change  in  the  ordinary  business  of  the  coun¬ 
try  will  change  the  business  of  the  Depart¬ 
ment:  the  revenue  may  decrease,  but  the  ex 


penditures  must  continue.  It  is  not  safe,  .. 
we  do  not  put  this  Department  on  the  Treas¬ 
ury,  at  this  session  of  Congress,  to  add  to  the 
past  roads  an  extent  of  travel  equal  to  the 
whole  extent  of  post  road  in  the  United  States 
in  the  year  1800,  and  at  the  same  time  abol¬ 
ish  entirely  the  postage  on  newspapers. 

When  the  present  incumbent  entered  on 
the  duties  of  his  ofhce  it  is  well  known  that 
the  expenses  of  the  Department  had  exceeded 
its  income  in  consequence  of  the  facilities 
which  had  been  granted  to  routes  which  were 
unprofitable.  It  had  not  been  in  his  power, 
until  the  last  year,  to  keep  the  expenditures 
within  the  receipts.  If  Congress  should,  at 
this  time,  embarrass  further  the  Department, 


have  produced  the  sum  of  825,414  20.  The 
number  of  free  letters  despatched  from  the 
city  during  the  same  quarter,  the  clerks  are 
of  opinion,  was  four  times  the  amount  of  those 
here  delivered.  Were  the  Department  to 
change  the  government  for  the  free  letters 
transmitted  for  the  benefit  of  Congress,  and  the 
several  Executive  Departments,  the  latt-r 
would  fall  in  debt  to  the  former,  after  deduct¬ 
ing  the  salaries  and  expenses  paid  to  the  Gen¬ 
eral  Post  Office  in  this  city,  several  hundred 
thousand  dollars  per  an  mm.  How,  then, 
can  if  be  said  that  the  Department  does  not 
support  itself? 

The  Senator  has  quoted  the  Edinburgh  Re¬ 
view  and  the  words  of  British  Lords  and  Com¬ 
mons,  to  prove  that  the  British  tax  on  news- 
if  papers  is  preferable  to  the  postage  on  news 


papers  in  the  United  States.  There  is  ahout 
the  same  analogy  between  the  two  cases  as 


the  Committee  will  have  discharged  their 
duty  it  they  say  that  their  bill,  without  the 
amendment,  is  as  much  as  the  Department  for 
the  next  year  can  bear  without  the  most  se¬ 
rious  inconvenience. 

But  the  Senator  from  Delaware  [Mr.  Clay- 
ton]  says,  the  Department  has  not  sustained 
itself  since  Major  Barry  came  into  office,  the 
salaries  of  the  officers  and  clerks  and  contin¬ 
gent  expenses  of  the  Department  in  this  city 
oeing  paid  directly  from  the  Treasury.  And 
s  this  a  new  arrangement  made  by  the  pre¬ 
sent  administration?  The  salaries  of  these 
>fficers  have  always  been  paid  from  the  pub¬ 
ic  treasury.  Yet  let  me  tell  the  Senator 
hat  the  Department  has  more  than  supported 
tself.  The  amount  of  postages  on  free  letters 
or  public  officers  and  for  both  Houses  of  Con¬ 
gress  would  much  exceed  all  the  money  taken 
rom  the  Treasury  in  aid  of  the  Post  Office 
)epartment. 

On  enquiry  at  the  Department,  I  find  the 
lumber  of  free  letters  delivered  at  the  Post 
)ffice  in  this  city  alone,  during  the  quarter 
rear  ending  April  1,  1832,  was  169,428.  These 
etters,  if  charged  with  postage,  might  be  sup 
losed  to  - 


there  is  between  a  despotic  and  a  free  go¬ 
vernment.  The  British  newspaper  stamp  is 
a  tax  outright,  exceeding,  in  amount,  as  two 
to  one  the  whole  expense  of  editors,  printers, 
and  paper-makers;  and  the  simple  duty  paid 
on  a  British  newspaper  advertisement  to  the 
government,  is  probably  three  times  as  much 
as  the  whole  expense  of  advertising  in  this 
country.  The  postage  on  newspapers  in  the 
United  States,  strictly  speaking,  is  not  a  tax; 
it  is  a  value  received,  ai  d  that  only  in  part, 
lor  a  value  bestowed. 

Under  the  British  system  of  newspaper 
taxation  but  few  of  the  common  people  are  able 
to  read  a  newspaper — fewer  still  to  take  and 
pay  for  them.  A  newspaper  in  Great  Britain 
is  let  out  to  readers,  when  first  published,  at 
a  higher  price,  diminishing  as  it  becomes  more 
stale;  so  that  the  poor  man,  if  he  be  able  to 
read  at  all,  must  get  his  news  several  days 
after  the  more  wealthy  obtain  theirs.  I  have 
somewhere  seen  it  stated  recentlv,  that  two 
daily  newspapers,  in  the  city  of  New  York, 
had  a  greater  number  of  advertisements  than 
the  whole  newspaper  press  of  Great  Britain; 
and  probably  more  newspapers  are  annuallv 
published  in  the  State  of  New  York,  than  in 
the  whole  of  the  United  Kingdom  of  Great 
Britain  and  Ireland. 

W  e  are  told  that  there  are  shackles  on  the 
press,  and  that  this  amendment  is  necessary  to 
relieve  it.  How  the  abolishing  of  newspaper 
postage  will  relieve  us  from  this  difficulty  I 
am  at  a  loss  to  conceive.  It  is  true  that  the 
newspaper  press  in  this  country  has  been 


shackled  as  long  as  I  can  remember.  In  Mr, 


Jefferson’s  time,  the  opposition,  the  aristocra¬ 
cy,  had  at  least  two  to  one  the  advantage  of 

.  o'  o - r  the  newspaper  press;  and  they  have  kept  that 

average  15  cents  each,  and  would ladvantage  up  to  the  present  time:  they  have 


5 


as  much  as  that  advantage  at  this  time  in  this 
city,  and  in  all  the  cities  of  the  United  States. 
It  was  the  merest  chance  in  the  world  that  the 
people’s  Chief  Magistrate,  elected  to  office  by 
an  electoral  vote  of  two  to  one,  has  a  solitary 
press  (the  Globe)  at  the  seat  of  Government, 
so  unshackled  as  to  dare  publish  the  truth 
when  it  shall  make  in  his  favor. 

The  patronage  bestowed  by  Congress*  om 
either  of  the  two  presses  in  this  District, 
which  djnot  support  the  administration,  (Te¬ 
legraph  and  Intelligencer,)  is  greater  '.iiy, 
mount  than  the  expenses  of  the  entire*  H’4if 
list  of  the  State  of  New  Hampshire,  apd, 
much  greater  than  all  the  patronage  bestowed 
by  the  a  (ministration  on  all  the  newspapers 
(including  the  editors  whp  have  been  appoint¬ 
ed  to  office,)  which  now  support  the  re-elec¬ 
tion  of  the  President. 

I  thank  the  Senator  for  mentioning  the 
printer  in  Kentucky,  who  is  charged  with 
having  sent  out  before  the  State  election  some 
bushels  of  electioneering  communications,  be¬ 
sides  receiving  from  Major  Barry  some  12,- 
000  a  year.  The  Senator’s  informant  was 
probably  under  some  slight  delusion — his  dis- 
vistorted  ion  had  very  likely  mistaken  the  in- 
mocent  bundles  of  post  office  blanks  sent  in 
the  mail,  for  a  counterpart  to  the  horrid  mur¬ 
der  of  the  six  militia  men. 

The  Kentucky  printer  is  more  fortunate 
than  any  printer  who  has  stood  fast  to  his  in¬ 
tegrity  within  my  know  ledge  :  he  receives 
$12,000  a  year,  according  to  the  statement 
of  the  Senator:  for  what?  For  furnishing  the 
post  offices  of  all  the  W estern  States  with 
wrapping  paper,  twine,  and  printed  blanks,  at 
a  given  price  not  beyond  their  worth.  Why 
not  procure  some  man  w  ho  is  not  a  printer  to 
furnish  these?  At  least,  why  not  give  the 
business  in  the  first  instance  to  some  worthy 
opposition  man,  so  if  he  was  obliged  to  em¬ 
ploy  a  printer  to  do  it,  he  might  farm  it  out 
and  compel  the  poor  man  to  do.it  for  less 
than  it  was  worth?  Had  this  Mr.  Shadrach 
Penn  printed  a  newspaper  on  the  other  side, 
and  received  twice  the  amount  he  now  re¬ 
ceives,  rely  on  it,  his  case  would  not  have 
been  brought  into  this  Senate  in  any  discus¬ 
sion  on  a  bill  for  establishing  new  post  roads 
in  the  United  States. 

In  the  six  eastern  States,  at  least  four  out 
of  five  of  the  contractors  under  the  Post  Office 
Department  are  not  the  friends  of  the  present 
administration:  some  of  these  receive  annu¬ 
ally  from  the  Department,  from  five  to  ten 
and  fifteen  thousand  dollars  each.  The  con¬ 
tracts  of  these  gentlemen  will  expire  with  the 
present  year  :  having  faithfully  performed 
their  obligations,  not  one  of  them  will  fare  at 


all  the  worse  in  making  new  contracts,  because 
he  happens  to  belong  to  the  party  which  does 
not  support  the  administration. 

The  Senator  says,  in  the  Southern  contracts 
lately  taken  out,  there  were  many  instances 
in  which  the  lowest  bids  were  not  accepted. 
The  practice  of  the  Department  has  invariably 
been,  to  protect  those  who  already  had  pro- 
\  pctdy-onvhpMitail  route;  if  other  persons  step¬ 
ped  m,  ,fdr  the  purpose  of  reducing  the  bid 
much  below  the  actual  cost,  they  were  requir- 
‘ed*to*pfii$ftas£5the5  property  at  a  fair  price,  or 
lVjse  theii*  bid..  '  -The  public  advertisements 
have  generally  stated  this  as  a  condition.  Such 
^asT^o-iny^pia^le  practice,  for  years  anterior 
to -the  present’ administration;  and  it  is  to  be 
presumed  that  cases  of  this  kind  were  those 
of  which  the  Senator  complains.  Precedent 
and  law  authorize  the  Postmaster  General  to 
exercise  a  sound  discretion  in  making  the 
Post*  Office  contracts.  That  the  contracts 
made  by  the  present  incumbent  have  been  ju¬ 
diciously  made,  is  proved  by  the  eminent  suc¬ 
cess  which  has  attended  all  the  operations  of 
the  Department.  If,  as  the  Senator  says, 
there  has  been  “  looseness  in  the  management 
of  the  whole  machinery  of  the  Department,” 
Major  Barry  has  been  more  fortunate  than  has 
been  any  other  man  of  my  acquaintance:  for 
what  machine,  as  extended  and  as  complex  as 
this,  ever  continued  to  operate  with  unabated 
and  even  with  renewed  vigor,  where  there  was 
looseness  or  laxity  of  management? 

It  is  scarcely  one  year  since  this  Depart¬ 
ment  was  pronounced  to  be  bankrupt — it  was 
not  only  charged  with  improvidence,  and  profli¬ 
gacy,  and  waste,  but  its  enemies  averred  that 
it  could  not  longer  proceed  without  throwing 
itself  on  the  public  treasury.  Will  gentle¬ 
men  admit  that  this  charge  was  not  true? — 
And  must  they  not  admit  it,  if  they  now  vote 
for  a  proposition  which  will  the  very  next 
year  impose  on  it  an  extra  expense  of  at  least 
two  hundred  thousand  dollars,  and  a  virtual 
additional  burden  of  half  a  million?  Haifa 
million  of  dollars  taken  from  the  means  of  the 
Department  may,  in  one  year,  accomplish  the 
predictions  of  its  enemies — it  may  so  em¬ 
barrass  its  operations  as  to  stop  one  half  of 
the  mails  in  the  country.  But  it  cannot  be 
the  design  of  the  mover  of  the  amendment  to 
produce  such  a  disastrous  result. 

It  has  been  said  that  the  Post  Office  De¬ 
partment  exercises  an  undue  influence  over 
the  newspaper  press,  and  that  it  is  wrong  to 
appoint  printers  and  editors  to  be  Postmas¬ 
ters.  I  cannot  agree  with  the  gentleman.  I 
believe  there  nevei  has  been  an  administra¬ 
tion  under  which  printers  and  editors  have 
not  been  Postmasters.  During  the  late  a 


6 


’ministration,  the  President  interfered  direct¬ 
ly  to  give  the  most  lucrative  Post  Office  in 
the  State  of  Maine  to  an  editor  of  one  of  the 
warmest  partisan  presses  of  the  country.  I 
believe  the  rule  of  the  present  administration 
to  be,  that  when  a  printer  or  editor  is  ap¬ 
pointed  to  a  Post  Office  where  the  duties  are 
sufficient  to  require  his  whole  attention  and 
the  compensation  exceeds  one  thousand  del 
lars — such  an  office  as  requires  the  President 
to  act  in  the  appointment — it  is  made  a  condi¬ 
tion  that  he  shall  not  continue  to  'purSne  hi> 
profession  of  printer  or  editor. 

There  is  no  more  reason  why  a  printer 
should  not  be  a  post  master,  than  there  iithat 
any  lawyer  or  physician  should  be  excluded 
from  the  same  office.  Benjamin  Franklin 
while  he  printed  a  newspaper,  was  fora  long 
time  post-master  at  Philadelphia,*  and  this, 
while  the  possession  of  the  office  gave  him  an 
advantage  over  other  printers  of  newspaper* 
in  that  city.  The  office  of  post-master  will 
give  any  professional  man  privileges  and  fa¬ 
cilities  for  acquaintance  and  business  beyond 
those  of  his  neighbors.  The  number  of  post- 
offices  in  the  United  States  is  comparatively 
few  in  which  the  labor  of  'he  post-master  is 
not  greater  than  the  compensation,  without 
some  other  advantage.  The  printer  of  a  vil¬ 
lage  newspaper  is  often  in  the  best  situation  to 
be  the  post-master;  and  with  a  compensation 
of  one,  two  or  three  hundred  dollars  a  year 
for  labors  in  the  office  day  and  night,  we  must 
suppose  the  man  to  be  very  prone  to  wick¬ 
edness  to  be  corrupted  or  improperly  influen¬ 
ced  by  the  possession  of  such  an  office. 

It  has  been  a  standing  subject  of  complaint 
that  printers  and  editors  have  been  appointed 
tu  office  under  the  present  ad  ministation. 
The  opposition  have  really  given  to  that  class 
of  men  a  consideration  to  which  they  were 
not  entitled.  They  are  no  worse,  and  proba¬ 
bly  no  better  than  any  other  class  of  men: 
some  there  are,  certainly,  who  take  upon 
themselves  the  duties  of  temporary  editors  of 
newspapers  who  work  for  pay,  and  who  are 
ready  to  take  up  on  any  side  for  a  quia  pro 
quo.  These  are  generally  from  another  pro- 
jession ,  which  ought  to  be  the  last  to  com¬ 
plain  that  too  many  offices  are  filled  by  prin¬ 
ters  and  editors.  The  talents  of  a  good  law 
yer  are  conceded  to  be  necessary  to  fill  a  ju¬ 
dicial  office  acceptably:  a  moderate  propor¬ 
tion  of  lawyers  will  do  very  well  in  our  legis¬ 
lative  bodies,  although  it  must  be  confessed 
that  a  preponderating  majority  often  tax  the 
patience  and  the  purse  of  the  people,  bv 
discussions  which  seem  to  them  interminable. 
But  it  is  not  easy  for  common  people  to  dis¬ 
cern  why  an  educated  lawyer  should  make  a 


better  post-master,  a  better  weigher  and  gua- 
ger,  or  a  better  officer  or  contractor  of  any 
sort,  than  any  other  well  educated  and  intei- 
ligent  man.  The  proportion  of  applicants 
tor  office,  both  for  executive  and  popular  ap¬ 
pointment,  are  as  four  lawyers  to  one  of  any 
other  profession.  This  is  ail  natural  and  pro¬ 
per— they  are  probably  better  qualified  and 
better  adapted  to  fill  public  iffices  ;  but  if 
any  profession  is  to  be  singled  out  as  an  <>b- 
jedt  for  public  comment,  let  those  have  the 
credit  or  blame  where  credit  or  blame  is  best 
deserved. 

The  Senator  from  Connecticut  is  either 
Wrong,  or  I  am,  when  he  says  the  war-rates  of 
fetter  postage  have  been  continu  id.  The  war- 
rates  were  fifty  per  cent,  -advance  of  the  pre¬ 
sent  rates.  The  letter  postage  <  ught  to  be 
reduced  before  the  newspaper  postage  shall 
Ite  touched.  The  moment  the  receipt  -,  of  the 
Department  will  authorize  it,  I  would  renuce 
the  letter  postage  at  le.  st  twenty-five  per 
cent.  The  experiment,  I  think,  would  not, 
in  the  end.  much  induce  the  revenue,  because 
the  increase  of  business,  after  the  first  year, 
consequent  on  the  lower  rate,  would,  very 
likely,  be  equal  to  the  amount  of  reduction. 
For  the  first  year,  the  falling  off  would  be  - 
nearly  equal  to  the  rate  of  the  reduction  ;  and  " 
therefore,  the  Department  cannot  now  bear  it 
in  addition  to  the  increased  expense  of  the 
new  routes  proposed  in  the  bill. 

The  newspaper  postage  is  said  to  be  a  se¬ 
vere  and  unjust  tax  on  literature.  Pamphlet 
postage  is  higher  pro  rata  than  newspaper 
postage.  Why  not  repeal  that  also  ?  Nay, 
Sir,  to  carry  the  principle  out,  why  not  enact 
that  printed  books  of  every  description  shall 
p:  ss  free  in  the  mail  ?  Such  a  rule  would  not 
give  the  book-dealers  in  the  large  cities  a 
greater  advantage  over  tl  e  small  dealers  in 
the  country,  than  will  the  abolition  of  postage 
on  newspapers  give  U  the  mammnt »  newspa¬ 
pers  of  the  Large  towns  over  the  village  news¬ 
papers.  ° 

At  a  proper  lime,  both  newspaper  and  let¬ 
ter  postage  tnav  be  reduced  :  never  ought  ei¬ 
ther  to  be  abolished  entirely.  Relying  en¬ 
tirely  on  the  receipts  of  the  Department  to 
support  itself,  no  reduction  ought  to  be  made 
the  present  year.  But  if  the  prosperous  bu¬ 
siness  of  the  country  shall  continue,  and  the 
receipt'  of  the  )epartmei  t  shall  continue  to 
ixceed  its  expenses,  let  the  postage  on  letters 
be  reduced  twenty-five  per  centum.  This 
may  be  done,  and  the  amount  of  letters  will 
increase,  without  embarrassing  the  burdens 
of  mail  transportation.  Afterwards,  if  the 
redundant  receipts  shall  continue,  let  news¬ 
paper  postage  be  reduced  to  one  half  cent 


each,  within  one  hundred  miles,  or  within  the 
limits  of  a  State,  and  to  one  cent  each,  be¬ 
yond  that  distance ;  and  let,  likewise,  the 
postage  on  pamphlets  and  printed  sheets  be 
reduced  in  the  same  ratio  with  newspapers. 

For  the  Senator  from  Maine,  [Mr.  Holmes,] 
Mi.  President,  1  entertain  all  that  respect 
and  sympathy  which  are  due  to  men  in  his 
condition.  Every  thing  is  wrong  with  him 
under  this  administration.  Jostled  out  of  his 
position  as  he  was  some  seven  years  ago,  by 
that  blazing  meteor  which  has  sometimes  ap¬ 
peared  in  our  political  hemisphere,  to  warn 
us  of  our  dangers,  and  with  unerring  aim  to 
point. out  the  true  from  the  counterfeit — 

[Mr.  Hill  was  here  interrupted  by  the 
Chairman,  [Mr.  Foote,]  who  said  he  could 
not  be  permitted  to  proceed,  his  remarks  be¬ 
ing  personal.  After  a  short  pause,  Mr.  II. 
did  proceed  as  follows:] 

The  suppositions  of  the  Senator  from  Mfiine 
about  the  abuse  of  the  franking  privilege,  and 
the  nine  thousand  Postmasters — about  this 
franking  privilege  prostrating  the  liberties  of 
lie  people  in  the  dust — about  the  enormous 
patronage  of  the  custom  house  in  New  York, 
extended  to  a  newspaper  of  that  city — about 
Shadrach  Penn,  the  New  Hatnpshiie  Patriot, 
Plnd  the  Boston  Morning  Post — about  the  bat¬ 
tering  down  of  every  thing  valuable  bv  this 
Post  Office  Department — about  die  dangers  of 
the  Senate,  because  some  newspaper  has  had 
t^ie  daring  presumption  to  propose  that  the 
Senators’  terms  of  service  shall  be  shortened, 
and  because  others  have  suggested  that  Sena¬ 
tors  who  do  not  represent  the  opinions  and 
wishes  of  their  constituents  ought  to  reign — 
about  the  assaults  of  the  press  on  the  Judici¬ 
al  y,  calling  the  Judges  dotards,  and  charging 
them  with  combining  with  a  cabal  of  the  Sen¬ 
ate — about  Mr.  Webb  of  New  York — about 
the  favorite,  the  beloved  minister  of  the  Pre¬ 
sident  rejected  by  this  body,  and  the  denun¬ 
ciations  of  the  Globe  for  that  rejection — about 
the  presumption  of  the  Senate  in  refusing  to 
listen  to  the  testimony  of  a  dismissed  officer 
in  the  Post  Office  Department — in  short,  about 
almost  every  thing  that  relates  to  the  people, 
the  administration,  or  the  opposition; — these 
suppositions  having  little  or  nothing  to  do 
with  the  question,  I  shall  leave  to  be  adjusted 
by  the  Senator  himself  when  he  shall  have 
more  leisure  to  attend  to  them  calmly  and 
dispassionately,  as  I  cannot  doubt  he  will  do, 
after  he  shall  have  settled  down  in  the  enjoy¬ 
ment  of  domestic  quiet. 

As  to  the  merits  of  fhe  amendment  itself,  I 
will  acknowledge  the  Senator  has  discovered 
all  his  usual  ingenuity  in  demonstrating  them; 
but  if  I  had  not  at  the  moment  written  it 


down,  the  whole  force  of  his  reasoning  would 
have  escaped  in  the  mist  which  he  afterwards 
raised. 

That  part  of  his  speech  which  was  a  writ¬ 
ten  calculation  of  what,  by  possibility,  might 
be  at  the  disposal  of  the  Department  on  the 
1st  of  July  next — if  it  were  true — might  fur¬ 
nish  a  good  reason  to  reduce  the  postage  on 
either  letters,  newspapers,  or  pamphlets,  or 
all  of  them.  I  think  he  made  his  calculation 
to  exceed  half  a  million  of  dollars.  This  cal¬ 
culation  was  predicated  on  the  fact,  that  in 
the  first  six  months  of  the  year  1831,  the  rev¬ 
enue  exceeded  the  expense  of  the  Department 
in  the  sum  of  $75, ■ 475  91.  But  it  should  be 
recollected  that  in  the  six  previous  months  the 
revenue  had  fallen  short  £>13.223  73;  and 
that  for  the  three  previous  years  it  was  minus 
from  25,000  up  to  §82,000  in  a  year. 

I  have  before  said  that  the  principle  of  the 
Department  always  has  been— not  to  obtain  a 
surplus  revenue-T— but  to  increase  the  facilities 
of  the  public  mail — to  increase  the  trips  and 
the  speed  on  the  more  important  routes — to 
extend  new  routes,  which  the  head  of  the  De¬ 
partment  was  authorized  by  law  to  do  be¬ 
tween  the  seats  of  justice  of  the  several  coun¬ 
ties  in  the  new  States — to  procure  the  mail 
carried  in  steam  boats  between  considerable 
places.  1  well  know  that  these  improvements 
and  facilities  have  been  extended,  up  to  the 
present  moment,  so  far  as  the  Department 
deemed  it  prudent  to  goi  There  has  been  no 
time  in  which  the  Department  has  not  been 
pressed  to  go  beyond  its  ability.  The  late 
Post  Master  General  acknowledged,  be¬ 
fore  he  left  his  office,  that  he  had  made 
extensions  whose  expenses  would  overreach 
the  receipts.  In  1827-8,  and  for  the  three 
subsequent  years  the  expenditures  were  be¬ 
yond  the  receipts:  this  may  be  accounted  for 
from  the  fact  that  in  the  year  1827,  the  last 
bill  for  establishing  new  post  roads  was  pass¬ 
ed.  The  bill  of  1827  did  not  cover  halt  the 
extent  of  the  bill  now  proposed;  yet  that  bill 
the  first  year,  having  been  in  operation  only 
six  months  of  the  term,  reduced  the  revenue 
within  the  expenditures  §25.000 — the  next 
year  to  §74,000 — the  year  after  to  §82,000, 
its  maximum,  in  consequece  of  the  increased 
facilities  given  in  the  contracts  of  1828;  and 
was  not  restored  until  the  year  ending  July  1, 
1831,  to  an  amount  exceeding  the  expendi¬ 
tures.  For  four  years  subsequent  to,  and  in¬ 
cluding  1820,  there  had  been  a  deficiency  each 
vear  of  from  §26,000  to  §125,000 — from 
1824  to  1828  there  was  a  surplus,  the  lowest 
year  §9,000  and  the  highest  year  §80,000. 
In  1827,  this  surplus  was  §55,000.  So  it  will 
be  seen  there  was  as  much  if  not  more  reason 


in  1828,  when  the  then  new  post  road  law 

went  into  effect,  to  anticipate  *  surplus  iumi 
as  there  now  is. 

Indeed  this  surplus  fund,  which  has  always 
consisted  of  uncollected  balances  due  to  the 
Department  from  postmasters  who  have  failed 
to  pay  over,  was  formerly  much  larger  than 
it  now  is.  Postmasters  were  not  formerly 
required  to  pay  over  as  promptly  as  they  now 
are,  and  a  much  larger  proportionate  amount 
was  lost  to  the  public.  It  is  now  deemed  a 
good,  yea  an  imperious  cause  for  removal,  if 
a  postmaster  fails  to  pay  over  his  dues  quar¬ 
terly.  The  deliciencies  which  have  occurred 
in  seven  years  since  1820,  have  been  made  up 
from  this  surplus  fund.  At  no  time  during  that 
period  has  the  Post  Office  Department  been 
in  possession  of  funds  beyond  what  was  neces¬ 
sary  for  carrying  on  its  extended  business: 
it  does  not  possess  them  at  this  time;  and  will 
you  now  force  it,  in  addition  to  a  burden  of 
new  post  roads  to  double  the  amount  of  what 
was  ever  at  any  one  time  imposed,  to  encoun¬ 
ter  the  transport  of  paper  equal  to  one  half  of 
the  whole  manufacture  of  the  United  States, 
to  be  delivered  out  in  single  printed  sheets 
in  the  most  distant  parts  of  the  country? 
Without  a  heavy  appropriation  directly  from 
the  Treasury,  the  Department  must  break 
down — it  cannot  sustain  itself  six  months  un¬ 
der  the  proposed  arrangement. 

The  mistake  of  gentlemen  on  this  subject 
is,  that  they  consider  the  postage  of  newspa¬ 
pers  in  the  light  of  a  tax.  If  it  be  a  tax,  it  is 
a  tax  on  the  public  for  the  benefit  of  the  person 
who  receives  it.  It  can  be  demonstrated  that 
Ahe  cost  for  carrying  and  delivering  newspa¬ 
pers,  is  greater  to  the  Department  than  the 
pay  it  receives.  It  will  be  in  time  to  answer 
the  argument  of  taxation,  oppression,  injus¬ 
tice,  when  this  newspaper  postage  is  proved  to 
be  taxation  and  injustice,  as  the  people  so 
consider  them.  The  Senator  has  mentioned 
the  great  privileges  which  the  newspapers 
have  in  New  York,  and  in  the  other  cities 
and  considerable  towns,  beyond  the  newspa¬ 
pers  of  the  villages.  I  question  very  much 
whether  a  cost,  equal  to  the  amount  of  post¬ 
age  by  mail,  is  not  paid  in  the  city  of  New 
York  for  the  carriage  and  delivery  ofnewspa- 
papers,  printed  within  that  city,  to  the  people 
of  the  same  city.  Thirty  thousand  dollars, 
the  sum  estimated  by  the  Senator,  does  not 
pay  the  numerous  paper  carriers  of  that  city, 
a  number  of  whom  must  be  employed  by  each 
daily  newspaper  press.  The  Post  Office  De¬ 
partment,  on  the  principle  of  this  amendment, 
should  pay  these  newspaper  carriers. 

The  Senator  says,  that  to  promote  a  saluta¬ 
ry  and  healthy  public  sentiment,  the  newspa¬ 


pers  of  one  State  should  be  introduced  into 
another  State  on  equal  terms  with  its  own  pa¬ 
pers — that  there  cannot  be  equal  ity  if  the  post- 
tage  on  newspapers  shall  not  be  abolished. — 
There  surely  cannot  be  equality  in  such  an  ar¬ 
rangement:  in  the  one  case,  the  printer  may 
have  his  materials  at  hand,  and  will  pay  no 
transport  to  the  point  of  destination — in  the 
other,  should  not  the  printer  have  his  ink  and 
his  paper  carried  over  the  same  ground,  at  the 
expense  of  the  Post  Office  Department?  If  the 
Postmaster  at  some  country  village  is  obliged 
to  preserve  and  deliver  out  to  subscribers  the 
newspapers  printed  in  other  States  without 
fee, ought  he  not  to  be  required  to  superintend, 
without  fee,  the  newspapers  printed  in  his 
own  village? 

But,  says  the  Senator,  the  franking  privilege 
is  exclusively  in  the  hands  of  the  party  in 
power,  and  an  important  election  is  at  hand. 

I  am  sorry  to  see  party  feelings  appealed  to  on 
such  a  question  as  this.  1  cannot  believe  that 
any  party  will  derive  a  permanent  benefit 
from  the  adoption  of  this  amendment.  The 
Senator  admits  that  while  congress  is  in  ses¬ 
sion  the  parties  at  this  point  are  equal  as  to 
the  advantages  of  the  franking  privilege. — 
During  the  present  session,  I  am  free  to  ac¬ 
knowledge  that  the  party  to  which  the  gen- 1 
tleman  belongs  have  been  much  more  indus¬ 
trious  than  the?other  side.  Our  folding  rooms 
have  presented  abundant  proof  of  this  fact. 
Members  of  Congress  do  far  more  at  this  bu¬ 
siness  of  franking  than  any  of  the  officers  of 
the  Departments.  I  have  myself  franked 
mere  papers  and  documents  in  one  week  since 
the  commencement  of  the  present  session, 
than  I  did  during  fifteen  months  in  which  I 
did  the  duties  of  Second  Comptroller  in  the 
Treasury  Department.  There  can  be  no 
object  in  franking  the  papers  from  the  district 
by  the  public  officers:  to  obtain  the  frank, 
these  papers  must  go  at  least  one  day  later 
than  they  would  go  from  their  offices  of  pub¬ 
lication.  Few  indeed  are  the  newspapers 
franked  either  by  the  officers  of  the  govern¬ 
ment  in  the  Departments  or  by  post-masters: 
they  cannot  afford  to  pay  for  more  papers 
than  they  read;  and  seldom  is  a  newspaper 
seen  in  the  mail  bearing  their  frank.  It  is 
much  more  natural  for  members  of  Congress 
to  supply  their  friends  during  the  session — 
they  know  their  constituents  will  be  gratified  as 
well  for  the  attention  that  is  paid  them,  as 
for  the  information  they  will  obtain  relative 
to  what  concerns  their  interests.  In  this  re¬ 
spect,  I  am  glad  that  the  Senator  acknow¬ 
ledges  the  parties,  the  administration  and  the 
minority,  to  stand  on  equal  ground. 

If  it  shall  be  the  intention  to  throw  this 


9 


Department  on  the  public  treasury  to  the 
amount  of  half  a  million  or  a  million  of 
dollars  per  annum,  for  the  sake  of  protecting 
the  large  newspaper  establishments  and  injur¬ 
ing  the  small  ones — for  the  sake  of  flooding 
the  country  with  newspapers  printed  in  this 
district  to  affect  the  Presidential  election; — 
I  trust  that  honorable  Senators  will  weigh  well 
the  consequences  of  such  a  step  before  they 
proceed.  It  will  be  fatal  to  the  wholesome  in¬ 
crease  and  growth  of  the  Department.  It  will 
be  an  unjust  tax  upon  the  whole  community 
for  the  benefit  of  the  political  trader  and  spec¬ 
ulator;  for  by  what  right  can  you  tax  the  peo¬ 
ple  for  the  carriage  of  newspapers  any  more 
than  you  can  tax  them  for  the  carriage  of  any 
other  commodity  used  and  consumed  by  any 
particlar  class?  Once  permit  the  Post  Office 
Department*  to  place  its  reliance  on  the  com¬ 
mon  Treasury,  arid  well  may  we  become 
alarmed  at  the  dangers  of  Post  Office  influ¬ 
ence.  There  will  no  longer  be  an  induce¬ 
ment  to  husband  the  resources  of  that  estab¬ 
lishment:  there  will  be  no  necessity  for  re¬ 
stricting  the  expenses  to  the  amount  of  the  ac¬ 
tual  income — the  scramble  will  be,  not  who 
can  best  serve  the  public,  but  who  can  get  the 
most  money  ?  The  means  of  corruption  will 
be  unbounded  :  the  Department  itself  will 
falter,  like  the  bloated  epicure,  from  the  free 
use  of  the  food  that  is  placed  before  it.  The 
temptation  will  be  too  great  to  be  resisted. 
If  the  principle  of  supporting  this  Depart¬ 
ment  from  the  public  treasury  he  adopted, 
there  will  he  no  bound  to  the  expense;  and 
its  inefficiency  will  increase  as  the  expense 
shall  be  increased. 

I  have,  Sir,  detained  the  Senate  longer  than 
I  could  have  wished.  I  would  not  have  spo¬ 
ken  at  ail,  had  I  not  felt  it  to  be  a  duty,  as  one 
of  a  Committee  which  has  bestowed  much  la¬ 
bor  on  this  bill,  to  resktan  amendment  which 
will  compel  me  to  vote  against  the  whole,  if ; 
this  shall  be  adopted  as  a  part  of  the  bill.  I ; 
am  myself  convinced, 


That  the  present  newspaper  postage  is  not 
a  full  remuneration  for  the  expenses  of  carry¬ 
ing  and  delivering  them. 

That,  to  abolish  this  postage  entirely  will 
impose  a  burden  on  the  Post  Office  Department 
which  cannot  be  borne  without  an  equivalent 
from  the  Treasury. 

That  payment  from  the  Treasury  will  be 
an  unjust  and  unequal  tax  upon  all  persons 
who  do  not  receive  their  newspapers  through 
the  mail. 

That  the  effect  of  abolishing  newspaper 
postage  will  be  the  destruction  and  injury  of 
the  small  newspaper  establishments  through¬ 
out  the  interior  of  the  country. 

That  it  will  enable  wealthy  and  designing 
men,  and  associations  of  men,  to  monopolize 
the  newspaper  press  of  the  United  States. 

That  the  expense  of  transporting  the  mails 
will  be  greatly  increased;  and  if  letter  mails 
shall  not  be  entirely  separated  from  newspa¬ 
per  mails, confusion  and  delay  will  take  place 
in  the  transmission  of.  letters. 

That  postmasters  will  demand  and  be  en¬ 
titled  to  an  equivalent  amounting  to  at  least 
one  half  the  present  postage,  for  which  no 
provision  is  made  by  law. 

That  the  proposition  is  an  interference  with 
the  private  business  and  industry  of  indivi¬ 
duals,  calculated  to  promote  the  benefit  of  the 
few  at  the  expense  of  the  many. 

That  it  will  make  the  routes  in  the  newly 
settled  parts  of  the  country,  and  indeed  in 
the  long  settled  parts  where  the  population  is 
scattered,  so  unproductive  as  to  compel  the 
Post  Master  General  to  discontinue  many  <Jf 
them. 

In  short,  that  the  tendency  of  this  amendment 
will  be  the  destruction  of  the  Post  Office  es¬ 
tablishment,  and  the  imminent  injury  of  the 
whole  trading  and  commercial  community — 
a  measure  of  more  immediate  mischief  than 
any  .which  has  passed  Congress  since  the  adop¬ 
tion  of  the  Constitution. 


SPEECH 

OF  Mil.  HILL,  OF  NEW  HAMPSHIRE, 

Tn  Senate  May  14,  1832,  in  reply  to  Messrs.  Clayton  and  HoW, 
on  the  bill  to  establish  certain  Post  Roads  and  discontinue  otlieers. 

As  while  this  bill  was  under  consideration, lwhat  relates  to  the  question  under  conside- 
beforethe  Committee  of  the  Whole,  an  at  ballon, 
tack,  unprecedented,  I  hope  and  believe,  11 


the  annals  of  this  Legislature,  upon  any  mem 
ber,  was  made  upon  me,  I  feel  bound,  as  a 
duty  which  I  owe  to  the  people  of  the  State 
whose  voice  sent  me  here,  to  ask  liberty  o. 
the  Senate  to  offer  my  explanation  and  de¬ 
fence.  I  do  it,  at  this  time,  at  the  suggestion 
of  my  friends;  for  really,  when  the  gentle¬ 
men  had  finished  each  his  studied  and  labor¬ 
ed  effort,  concocted  it  may  be  in  this  House, 
it  may  be  over  the  midnight  lamp,  I  did  not 
consider  any  thing  intended  for  me,  beyond 
the  merits  of  the  question  then  under  consi¬ 
deration,  as  worthy  of  an  answer. 

It  should  be  recollected,  that  t  had  made 
no  attack,  personally,  on  either  the  Ssenatoi 
from  Delaware  [Mr.  Clayton,]  or  the  Sena¬ 
tor  from  Maine  [Mr.  Holmes  f)  I  noticed  the 
previous  arguments  of  both,  as  I  thought,  in  a 
respectful  manner  ;  and  as  one  ot  the  gentle¬ 
men  had,  in  my  opinion,  strayed  far  from  the 
question,  I  intended  nothing  offensive  to  him 
in  the  pleasant  allusion  for  which  I  was  inter- 
ipted  by  the  Chair,  by  endeavoring  to  ac 
L  .  J,y  ,  _ i  ^^oacrtio-  flip  hone  tha 


umi.  . 

The  time  has  been,  Mr.  President,  in  other 
legislative  bodies  than  this,  when  I  have  par¬ 
ticipated  in  debate  without  confining  myself 
to  notes  of  any  sort;  and  I  have  had  the  best 
reasons  to  believe  that  I  there  discharged  my 
duty  acceptably  to  those  who  placed  me 
there.  To  those  only  who  .placed  me  here 
am  I  now  accountable:  I  have  a  right  here  to 
consume,  if  I  so  choose,  as  much  time  as  the 
Senator  from  Delaware  or  even  the  Senator 
from  Maine.  I  shall  not,  however,  do  that. 
My  views  on  the  post  office  bill  were  given 
by  the  request  of  other  gentlemen.  I  should 
not  have  volunteered  even  on  that  question, 
had  not  gentlemen  older  than  mysell  desired 

it  of  me.  tl  . 

I  might,  Mr.  President,  talk  in  my  way, 
without  note  or  scrip,  for  three  day's,  if  it 
was  my  purpose  to  throw  embarrassment  on 
public  measures,  and  to  prevent  the  business 
of  the  legislature  from  proceeding.  In  that 
time  I  might  drag  into  this  body,  on  almost 
any  question,  the  characters  of  persons  who 
?snrl  whn  cannot  stand  here  in  their 


count  for  that,  and  in  expressing  the  hope  that 
he  might,  when  in  a  different  situation,  be 
better  satisfied,  if  not  with  tins  .wicked  admi¬ 
nistration,  with  the  wicked  world  least. 

If  the  Senators  trom  Delaware  and  Maine 
are  not  pleased  with  my  manner,  nor  with  my 
appearance,  nor  yet  with  my  principles,  1 
can  assure  the  gentlemen  I  am  no  better  pleas¬ 
ed  with  theirs.  As  Senators,  I  respect  them , 
as  individuals,  when  I  shall  seek  their  good 
opinions  or  their  kind  offices,  or  ask  tor  or 
need  their  mercy,  I  might  be  disappointed  it 
I  expected  either  :  their  good  opinions,  then 
kind  offices  and  their  mercy,  however  will 
come  when  I  shall  ask  for  them. 

The  Senator  from  Delaware,  on  whom  1 
have  at  no  time  made  an.  unkind  remark  in 
this  body,  charges  me  with  a  violation  ot  the 
rules  of  this  Senate  by  sometimes  reading 
what  I  have  to  say;  and  asks  if  such  punish¬ 
ments  as  hearing  me  are  to  be  inflicted  on, 
and  to  be  endured  .by,  the  Senate.  If  1  am 
permi  ted  to  act  al  all  in  this  body,  1  will 
assure  the  gentleman  I  shall  take  my  owi 
way  to  do  it;  and  that  will  be  always,  ex 
cept  in  justifiable  defence,  to  communicate  in 
as  short  and  concise  a  manner  as  possible 


UUCoumj,  ~  i  .  . 

are  absent  and  who  cannot  stand  here  in  their 
defence.  I  might  misrepresent  almost  every 
fact  connected  with  the  government  or  its  ad¬ 
ministration;  and  I  might  (if  the  Chair  would 
suffer  me  to  proceed)  misrepresent  and  falsi¬ 
fy  the  conduct  and  character  of  honorable 
Senators  themselves.  But,  so  long  as  reason 
holds  her  empire  in  the  breast,  I  never  can,  1 
never  will  do  this:  respect  for  myself,  respect 
for  the  people  I  represent,  nay, sir,  respect  for 
the  Senate,  will  forbid  it. 

If  I  have  violated  the  rules  of  the  Senate, 
surely  that  has  been  an  error  of  the  head— 
not  of  the  heart.  I  supposed,  Mr.  President, 
that  all  Senators,  so  long  as  they  have  used 
decent  language,  had  the  liberty  of  speech. 

L  did  not  suppose  the  gag-law  was  to  be  ap¬ 
plied  to  one  .member,  while  other  members 
were  permitted  to  say  what  they  pleased.  If 
we  have  here  a  privileged  class,  I  am  yet  to 
iearn  in  what  part  of  the  constituti  >n  or  the 
laws  that  privileged  classes  designated. 

The  Senator  from  Maine  avowed  his  object 
to  be  that  I  should  be  silenced,  and  that  I 
must  expect  to  be  lacerated  and  whipped  into 
silence.  Does  he  know  the  kind  of  man  he 
is  dealing  with  ?  Does  he  know  that  what 
man  dare  do  for  the  public  welfare,  the  man 


n 


»y  him  assailed  dare?  Does  he 


Unowtha.Senat^Sh.^Ibep^. 


as 


other  Sena- 


torsare  STf™  mf own  method  of  deliver- 
in-  my  sentiments  to  this  Senate,  I  shall  not 
desist  from  attempting  to  present my  view 
on  every  occasion  when  it  may  be  ne 
cessary  to  explain  my  motives  of  action  to 
the  people  I  represent.  I  will  not,  howe\- 


man  h'as^iever  quailed  under  the  assaults  of 


uemeu  inm  - -  er  doas  Oiners  uu,  saj  p 

Senate,  if  they  hear  me  at  all;  to1'  ,  y  a,ul  be  compelled  to  lay  afterwards  per- 

I  might  repeat  stale  jokes  and  jibes,  U_l_hadpeog  Mr.  President,  was  not  to 

retort  on  the  Senators  from  Delaware  a..d 


1  might  repeat  stale  jokes  and  jibes 
ever  learnt  them,  and  edify  a  crowd  of  young 
men  or  ladies,  who  relished  and  admired  such 
and  iibes.  I  might  exhaust  toe  vocabu- 
lary  of  billingsgate,  and  display  all  the  talent 
of  the  vulgar,  drunken  blackguard,  if  I  had 
ever  studied  his  language,  and  made  it  a  mo¬ 
del  for  my  imitation.  The  Senate  had  muc .1 
better  bear  with  me  in  a  concise  argumen  , 
such  as  1  can  most  conveniently  Fesent  to 
them,  than  take  me  as  a  pugilist  01  gladia¬ 
tor  in  a  different  field. 


Maine,  language  in, kind, 


Humble  as  I  am, 


L  would  not  do  it  if  I  could;  and  my  associa 
tions  in  life  have  not  been  of  that  pokshed  cast 
as  to  enable  me  to  doitif  I  would.  Thebandy- 
of  epithets,  the  reproaches  for  being  what 
God  and  nature  have  made  us,  never  was  and 
never  shall  be,  in  any  legislative  body,  any 
nart  of  my  business. 

Both  of  the  Senators  have  done  me  in- 
iustice  when  they  impute  to  me  an  unprovok 
J  \  .  a  _  +  vaivaffacainn  of  the  laW,  t< 


r  in  a  umeieut  utm,.  .  f  ^  -+.  ;llChpp  when  they  impute  w  me  «« 

I  do  not,  Mr.  President  deviate  from  tojustaewl  „  t{ie  profession  of  the  law,  to 
.iiomonfarv  nractice.  There  is  a  rule  01  ed  ftpnatnr  irom  Maine 


tfffitC^b.;  shall  speak  more 
than  twice,  in  any  one  debate,  on  the  »ame 
day,  without  leave  of  the  Senate.  How  of 


wh"ofession  the  Senator  Irom  Maine 
claims  to  be  an  ornament-“a  burning  and 
a  shining  light.”  I  spoke  of  that  profession 


nay,  wiuium  ‘“w  —  - - .  .  .  ,,  Yet  hn  terms  of 'respect;  Ware  many  gentle 

rru;;S  th^s  “  £$?  -srsiS 

objection, it »«»«  “„*i;"®ont  that ‘  ‘no 

in  this  body;  that  they  commenced  the  onset 
in  this  debate.  I  repelled  that  onset  by  say- 

ruie  era  -  1  to -mg  that  there  were  men  of  another  profession 

the  Senate  is:  “No  member  shall  speak  to  ing  g  t0  censuie  (if  censure  was  due 

another,  or  otherwise  interrupt  thebusinessolla  b^.  ^  ^  pr-mters  and  editors  of 

the  Senate,  or  read  any  printed  PaP  „r  newspapers.  For  stating  what  was  tact, 

the  journals  or  public  papers  are  reading,  orlne  ^p  p  forty-eight  gentlemen  are  ap 

wheii  any  member  is  speaking  in  any  L^'aleifto,6  that  Jey  maylrise  in  judgi 


aTile'of the" British  Parliament  that .“no  one 
is  to  speak  impertinently  or  beside  the ^  ques¬ 
tion,  superfluously  or  tediously.  Is  that 
rule  ever  transgressed  here?  Another  rule  of 
the  Senate  is:  “No  member  shaiy  speak  to 


Is  that"  rule  ever  violate3?  I  knovv  of 
no  rule  which  precludes  a  member  from 
writing  down  what  he  is  going  to  say;  but  1 
do  know,  if  some  speakers  had  written  down 
all  they  did  sav,  and  that  writing  were  pub¬ 
lished,  the  world  might  he  astonished. 

In  some  of  the  first  parliamentary  bodies  of 
the  world,  speeches  are  written  out  and  read 
as  they  are  written.  1  have  seen  myself  one 
of  the  most  eminent  lawyers  read  Ins  argu¬ 
ment  in  a  case  requiring  precision.  In  the 
French  Chamber  of  Deputies,  I  am  told  bv 
those  who  have  attended  there,  a  lai  ger  p. 
of  the  speeches  are  read  from  the  rostrum  - 
The  speeches  of  that  great  and  exalted  man 
Lafayette — speeches  which  are  translated  m_ 
to  our  language,  and  admired  on  this  side  of 
the  Atlantic— are  thus  delivered.  Shall  it  be 
said,  under  despotic  France,  there  was  a 

r  t _ _ _ i i n  Kor  lpcnftlatlVC  USSCITI 


pealed  to,  that  they  may  arise  in  judgment 
a<rainst  me.  Of  these  forty-three  gentlemen  I 
will  believe  there  is  at  least  a  moiety  who  will 
not  assume,  that  purity,  and  integrity,  and 
talent,  and  intelligence,  belong  exclusively  to 
any  one  class  of  men,  or  that  there  is  in  this 

free  country  any  class  whose  privileges  aie 
superior  to  an  others.  “Taunts  upon  the 
profession,”  l  deny  having  made.  I  might 
have  said  there  are  lawyers  who  are  verystu- 
pid,  and  illiterate,  and  ignorant.  1  might  have 
said  there  are  others  who  are  profligate  and 
depraved— others  who  are  supercilious  and 
abusive;  and  I  could  have  cited  the  authouty 
ot  lawyers  themselves^  to  prove  as  much  as 
this  But  I  offered  no  such  provocation  to 

n’aX'ThS"™*" «“  sr.>« 

from  Delaware,  that  if  he  charges  me  as  being 


said,  under  despotic  F^an^®’  •t’?a[w™assem-  one  of  a  firm  in  the  State  of  New  Hampshire. 


printing  for  tiie  Post  Office  Department, 
$3000  per  annum,  the  charge  is  not  true.  J 
do  not  now,  I  never  did  belong  to  any  firm, 
that  ever  had  a  contract  of  the  kind.  Not 
is  there,  to  my  knowledge,  any  firm  in  that 
State  that  ever  has  received  to  the  amount  of 
one  thousand  dollars  on  any  such  contract. 

Further  I  will  say,  that  if  he  charges  on  me 
the  removal  of  fifty  Postmasters  in  New 
Hampshire,  that  is  also  equally  untrue.  The 
changes  that  have  been  made  in  New  Hamp¬ 
shire,  were  made  in  consequence  of  petitions 
that  were  presented  by  the  citizens  interest¬ 
ed — the 1  ‘  ’  ** 

and  sufficient  cause;  and  a  vast  majority  of 
the  people  of  that  State  sustain  the  adminis¬ 
tration  which  made  those  changes. 

Further — if  the  Senator  intended  to  sav  that 
I  am  a  contractor  under  the  Post  Office  De¬ 
partment  for  any  amount,  this  is  not  true.  I 
have  been  concerned  in  no  mail  contract  since 
the  commencement  of  the  present  administra¬ 
tion. 

Further  still — if  the  Senator  intended  to 
say  that  any  connexion  of  mine,  by  birth  or 
marriage,  has  been  placed  in  any  office  by  the 
present  ac  ministration,  on  my  petition  or  re¬ 
quest,  made  either  to  the  President  or  any 
head  of  a  Department,  this  also  is  not  true. 

If  I  am  correctly  informed,  one  of  the  gen¬ 
tlemen  named  as  a  connexion  of  mine,  and 
the  fearful  responsibility  of  whose  appoint¬ 
ment  is  thrown  upon  me,  received  that  ap¬ 
pointment  through  the  especial  interference 
of  the  Senator  from  Maine,  during  the  ad¬ 
ministration  of  Mr.  Monroe;  and  of  this  I  be¬ 
lieve  the  papers  at  the  Treasury  would  fur¬ 
nish  evidence. 

The  Senator  from  Maine,  as  if  the  word  of 
one  were  not  sufficient,  has  also  reiterated 
these  and  other  allegations.  He  described  a 
person  as  having  had  for  years  mail  contracts 


If  the  Senator  from  Maine  intended  .the 
Senate  to  understand  that  I  ever  callee 
on  the  President  of  the  United  States,  to  ask 
limn  either  for  the  office  which  he  tendered  me, 
or  any  other  office,  or  to  remove  any  officeil 
that  I  might  fill  his  place,  that  also  is  untrue. 

the  concerns  ol  an  individual,  I  am  well 
aware,  ought  not  here  to  be  introduced.  Bu 
since,  without  provocation,  my  motives  ii 
[supporting  this  bill  as  it  Is,  have  been  im- 
peached,  my  integrity  questioned,  my  goo( 
name  blackened  and  defamed,  I  feel  bound  t( 

ffiicienT6 ,made’  a!  1  beli«ve’  good  made’,  accusation's  wffich  Imve^eitheT  trail, 
fficient  cause;  and  a  vast  majority  of  nor  the  semblance  of  truth  for  their  founda- 

tion. 

The  Senator  from  Maine,  since  the  com¬ 
mencement  of  the  present  session,  has  read 
to  the  Senate  many  extracts  from  newspa¬ 
pers.  He  will  permit  me  to  read  a  few  lines: 
they  are  from  a  newspaper  printed  in  his  own 
county.  The  article  I  would  read  was  point¬ 
ed  out  to  him  the  other  day.  as  he  passed  mv 
'seat,  and  he  said  it  was  “right;  meaning  I 
presume,  that  the  Editor  of  the  paper  [the  Sa- 
co  Democrat]  had  truly  represented  the  case. 
Here  it  is: 


“  VV e  have  frequently  had  occasion  to  speak  of  the 
extreme  modesty  of  our  Senator  in  Congress,  the  hon¬ 
orable  John  Holmes.  This  is  a  quality  possessed  by 
lum  in  an  eminent  degree,  and  can  be  equalled  only 
(by  his  admirable  consistency.  The  latest  display  of: 
our  Senator’s  modesty  is  to  be  found  in  a  letter  of 
his,  written  under  a  Washi  igton  date  of  Feb.  4.  In 
alluding  to  his  reply  to  a  speech  of  Mr.  Hill,  our 
modest  Senator  says: 

‘‘After  Mr.  Hill  had  finished  reading  his  piecey 
“which  cost  the  Senate  near  three  hours  of  their 
“time,  Mr.  Holmes  rose  and  in  less  than  10  minutes 
“gave  the  fellow  such  a  scourging  as  he  never  had  j 
“before.  Upham’s  chastisement  was  a  flea  bite 
‘to  it. 

‘As  Mr.  Holmes  was  very  deliberately  administer- 
‘insr  the  chastisement,  a  Senator  turned  to  Mr. 


fn  fK  V  P ,  Jear5,maU  contracts  “ing  the  chastisement,  a  Senator  turned  to  Mr 

to  the  amount  of  thirty  thousand  dollars  annu-  “Dickerson— -‘Governor,’  said  he,  ‘is  this  shaving  or 
ally,  as  being  a  contractor  for  a  large  section  “skinning?'  Dickerson  replied,  ‘by  the  Lord,  it  is 
of  country,  and  as  having  farmed  out  the  con- 
tracts  to  the  disadvantage  and  injury  of  those 
who  performed  the  labor.  If  lie  intended  me 
by  Ins  description,  I  must  say  that  the  state¬ 
ment  is  as  void  of  truth  as  was  the  statement 
and  charges  against  the  Post  Office  Depart¬ 
ment,  read  from  the  newspaper  printed  in 
the  State  of  Maine,  since  the  commencement 
of  this  debate.  For  the  eighteen  years  that 
I  was  a  contractor  under  the  administrations 
of  Mr.  Madison,  Mr.  Monroe,  and  Mr.  Ad¬ 
ams,  those  contracts,  according  to  the  best  of 
my  recollection,  never  exceeded  in  amount  in 
any  one  year  the  sum  of  three  thousand  dol¬ 
lars;  and  on  these  contracts  I  never  received 
as  my  commission  for  risque  and  responsibil¬ 
ity  exceeding  five  per  cent.  Since  January  1, 

1829, 1  have  bee*  interested  in  no  contract. 


‘ skinning . 

What  a  great  pity  it  is  that  Mr.  Holmes  cannot 
procure  some  competent  person  to  blow  the  tfumpet 
for  him.  How  awfully  Mr.  Hill  must  have  felt 
when  Mr.  Holmes  was  ‘putting  it  on.’  How  very 
strange  that  ‘not  a  creature  present  entertained  the 
least  sympathy  for  him.’  ” 

If  the  Senator  calls  his  former  attempt 
skinning ,  what  will  lie  denominate  his  last 
attack?  Is  it  any  thing  less  than  assault  and 
battery,  with  intent  to  murder?  I  will  assure 
the  gentleman,  that  in  that  section  of  the  coun¬ 
ty  where  both  of  us  are  best  known,  his  war¬ 
like  instruments,  his  tomahawk  and  scalping 
knife,  are  both  pointless  and  edgeless.  His 
weapons,  in  that  region,  like  the  muskets  of 
Hudibras, 

“When  aimed  at  duck  or  plover, 

Bear  wide  and  kick  their  owner  over.” 


3  0112  061619869 


